Tabula Rasa
by Esm3rald
Summary: Harry has just found out that she's supposed to sacrifice herself to destroy the horcrux inside her. She's still in Dumbledore's office when she finds a strange artifact. When she touches it, she's transported in the year 1942, the summer before Tom Riddle's fifth year at Hogwarts. Oh, and she has lost all her memories. FemHP/TMR.
1. Prologue

**TABULA RASA**

 **Summary** : Harry Potter was once the girl-who-lived; she was once a gryffindor; she was once the daughter of Lily and James Potter; she was once Voldemort's nemesis; she was once a light witch; An accident with a magical artifact is enough to change all that. She ends up in the year 1942, the summer before Tom Riddle's fifth year at Hogwarts. If that weren't bad enough, she has lost all her memories. FemHarry/TMR. Dark!FemHarry. Smart!FemHarry. Powerful!FemHarry.

 **Okay so, I know that I should definitely not start another story but this idea just came to me and well, I couldn't not write it, no? I can't say that the updates would be regular because well, they won't be. Still, this is it, the prologue of a new story.**

 **Like the summary said, FemHarry is in Dumbledore's office and she has just found out that she's supposed to sacrifice herself to destroy the horcrux inside her. However, before she can do that, she finds something in Dumbledore's office that catches her attention. When she touches its surface, something happens and she finds herself still at Hogwarts but in the 40's with Tom Riddle still a student. Oh, and she seems to have lost her memory. She doesn't remember anything about herself, about Voldemort, the war, the Dursleys, not even her own name (though she remembers how to do spells, how to read and write, what she learned at Hogwarts etc; she just has no personal memories).**

 **I just really wanted to write a story during Tom's years at Hogwarts and Harry had no memories of who she was or about Voldemort. This way, like the title says, it would be a 'tabula rasa' kind of situation where neither of them knows anything about the other so there are no prejudices of any kind as a barrier between them. And also, I just always kind of wondered what would have happened, what kind of person Harry would have become if he hadn't been the boy-who-lived who lost his parents because of Voldemort and if he hadn't been manipulated by Dumbledore all his life. If he had simply been an orphan who had grown up with abusive muggles, what kind of person would he have become? This story is the result of all this pondering.** **Also, sane!Tom, human!Tom but still very much Dark!Tom.**

* * *

 **Prologue**

Harry found herself once again in Dumbledore's office, lying on the carpet and staring at the ceiling in shocked silence. She had just finished watching Snape's memories and finally, the truth had been revealed. She was an Horcrux and she was supposed to sacrifice herself so that Voldemort would finally die.

Harry stood up on uncertain feet, trying to come to terms with all the revelations Snape's memories had brought upon her. Dumbledore had betrayed her, playing a long, complicated game of chess not only with her life but with several others like Snape's. She imagined he had told himself it was for the greater good and maybe it was but…how could he live with himself, manipulating people's lives, using their guilt against them, controlling them like puppets?

Of course, it didn't matter right now. Dumbledore was dead, Snape was dead and soon, she and Voldemort would be too.

A mirthless laugh left her lips. Was that it then? Had her mother and father really sacrificed their lives so that she could have just a few more years to live and then end her life as a willing sacrificial lamb? It wasn't fair. But, of course, when had life ever been fair to her? She had never been the master of her own fate. Since before she was born, other people had decided who she was supposed to be. Was it really so strange then that she wasn't even free to decide how she was going to die?

Harry looked around Dumbledore's office one last time, trying to prepare herself mentally for what was to come. All the portraits were sleeping, except for Dumbledore's. He was suspiciously absent.

She knew that the more time she would spend mulling over what she was supposed to do and the less courage she would have to actually do it.

Suddenly, something caught her attention from the corner of her eye. A cabinet door – not the one containing the pensieve but another one – was slightly ajar and something inside of it was…glowing?

Harry came closer, unable to resist her curiosity. What she found inside was…another pensieve? But no, this one was different from the one she had just left. It still looked like some kind of basin but it wasn't made of stone but some kind of black glass-like material. It was perfectly polished and shone when the light hit it. Harry thought it could have been obsidian but she wasn't sure. Engraved on the black surface were tiny runes she didn't recognize, looking nothing like the runes she had studied in class. Inside the runes there was a strange blue liquid. It didn't look like the silvery substance memories were made of. This looked completely liquid, almost transparent except for this strange blue tint. That was the source of the glowing.

Harry knew that she was probably wasting time. That she needed to go, do her duty and save the wizarding world; that she couldn't stay there any longer, especially snooping around things that could very well be dangerous. But there was something about this thing that was…calling to her. That was probably another reason why it wasn't a good idea for her to even be close to that thing.

Like usual, though, her recklessness and her curiosity won out and she extended her hand forward. Her palm touched the black surface and immediately the runes started to glow blue like the liquid inside the basin.

She felt her palm burning but she couldn't move the hand away from the strange occurrence. Then a peculiar, warm wind rose up around the room, moving objects around and throwing things on the floor. Harry was frozen in place, unable to move away and knowing that she had set something in motion and terrified to know what.

Then the wind rose higher until she felt like it was a living thing, squeezing her chest and blocking her lungs. The pain in her hand became unbearable and she cried out but the noise of the wind was so strong in her ears that she couldn't even hear her own voice.

Then, everything quieted. The wind stopped, the pain in her hand was gone and Harry found that she could move. She immediately retracted her hand and observed her palm. Something had been carved on her hand. It was black like a tattoo and it looked like a circle. However, she could see the head of a snake biting its tongue and knew immediately that what was in her palm wasn't a simple circle but an ouroboros. She frowned, confused and scared.

When nothing happened for long minutes she breathed a sigh of relief but then, both the strange black pensieve and her own palm started to glow blue once again. In a second that burning sensation that she had felt on her palm was back but it soon extended all over her body. The pain was immeasurable. Harry felt like every single particle in her body was tearing itself from the other. She looked as her own hand started to disintegrate in front of her, then her arm. She screamed until she had a mouth to use and then everything went black.


	2. NOT A CHAPTER! AUTHOR'S NOTE!

**PLEASE, READ THIS! IT'S IMPORTANT!**

 **Just wanted to say that, while pretty much all events in Canon happened in the same way here, up until Harry goes to Dumbledore's office to view Snape's memories, there are still some small differences.**

 **For one, Harry loves, to the point of obsession even, both defensive magic and the Dark Arts themselves (though she tried to convince herself that her interest in the Dark Arts is only due to the fact that, to learn to protect herself from them, she needs to know them intimately). Therefore, she loves them much more than even Harry in canon. DADA is her favourite subject by a long shot, once again, more than Harry. So much so that, even during first year, she would spend hours in the library (and borrow books from the library) to study as much as she could about curses, counter-courses, jinxes etc, even more advanced than her current year of study. This means that she's very good at duelling, en par with an Auror or a Death Eater easily. She has a very vast knowledge of both Defensive Magic and Offensive Magic.**

 **Also, she got O's in Charms, Transfiguration and Herbology in her OWLs, as well as DADA, of course (she failed History of Magic like in Canon, mostly because she had a vision in the middle of the exam, and a A in Astronomy). She also took, beside Divination and Care of Magical Creatures, Ancient Runes as well. But then switched to Arithmancy in her fourth year, instead of continuing with Divination. (Since the third-year curriculum of Arithmancy is theoretical, she studied it on her own the summer between third and fourth year, buying the yearbook for third year Arithmancy). She got E's in her OWLs in these two subjects as well as Care like in Canon.**

 **About Potions, she pretty much hated it until her sixth year. She got an E in her OWLs by the skin of her teeth (and that's only because she wanted to be an Auror and needed the grade in Potions). She got into Slughorn's class like in Canon and like in Canon found the Prince book. But, unlike in canon, figuring he was an ex-student at Hogwarts and that maybe he left other books as well, she went to the Room of Requirements to ask the room to find all copies of the Half-Blood Prince books, not only sixth year Potions.**

 **Thanks to the book, she developed an interest in Potions as well. She didn't only memorize the better instructions of the sixth-year potions, but all other recipes of the potions for all other years as well (seventh year included). But, not only that, she also learnt to understand Potions in a way she had never been able to before because her hatred towards Snape and his hatred towards her made learning from him impossible. She also learnt other spells the Prince created, not only the ones inside the sixth year potions' book, like Sectumsempra or Levicorpus. She not only found books on Potions belonging to the Prince but also books about Occlumency and Legilimency (and she learnt both – once again the hatred between her and Snape making her unable to learn from him), and books about Dark Arts and Defence. She can also cast wordlessly, unlike Harry from Canon.**

 **When she used the Sectumsempra on Draco, and Snape asked her to bring him all her school books, she left the Prince's books in the Room of Requirement, the Room of Hidden Things, inside a bottomless, featherlight bag. She then went to retrieve it later. She didn't leave the Prince books in the Room of Requirements. When she found out who the Prince really was, she thought about throwing all the books away but then decided that so much knowledge couldn't be lost like that, no matter where it comes from.**

 **Therefore, in this story, though she loses every 'personal' memory (her name, who her parents are, her life with the Dursleys, her year at Hogwarts, even Voldemort), she still remembers everything she learnt, she just doesn't remember where she learnt them from. Not only she remembers how to cast every spell she has ever learnt, to brew every potion she has ever brewed etc, she also knows how to cast spells she has only seen other casts or even spells she has only read in a book (which I think it's very possible because Harry successfully casted Sectumsempra on his first try in Canon and he had only just read the spell, nobody taught him how) – there are limits, of course, if the spell is based on a particular emotion like the Patronus, or the Unforgivables (though she knows how to cast the Imperius successfully – and she can fight it off, of course, like in Canon – and the Cruciatus – in this story she successfully casted it against Bellatrix at the DOM – and it's very possible that, without memories she will learn to cast the Avada Kedavra successfully as well).**

 **Moreover, she learnt Latin and Ancient Greek in Primary School. Since she knew how to read Ancient Greek, she read Herpo the Foul's books in its original language. For those who don't know, Herpo is the first known wizard who successfully created a Horcrux. During the Horcruxes' hunt, to find as much info about Horcruxes as they could, Harry and Hermione read all the books they could find that even mentioned Horcruxes in passing. Harry went even further and read all the books Herpo has ever written (he was a Parselmouth and a spell crafter). Some of those books were, of course, written in Parseltongue as well, therefore only Harry could read it (not Hermione I mean). Remember that she's basically obsessed with the Dark Arts as well as Defensive magic, so she would never pass such an opportunity up.**

 **Also, she never tried to create her own spells but that doesn't mean that she won't. Both Ancient Runes and Arithmancy can be used to create spells, wards and rituals, and she took those at Hogwarts. Also, Herpo the Foul explained how he created his own spells (his books are like journals, not really like published books).**

 **Also, once again because this Harry is obsessed with Dark Arts and Defensive Magic, she made use of the Black Family library (which is something I've always found frustrating in canon. You have a huge library that actually belongs to you and you never even went inside, what the hell?).**

 **Also, for the sake of this story, Lily was distantly related to the Gaunts, distantly related enough not to have inherited the Parselmouth ability (Harry 'inherited' the ability from Voldemort because she is a Horcrux but the Horcrux only awoke a dormant ability, therefore even if she stops being a horcrux and she has children, those children will inherit almost certainly the parseltongue ability).**

 **Also, Sirius sort of blood-adopted her when she was born. When he became her godfather, he sort of became her second father by blood as well and Sirius' heir – and therefore the Black heir – by blood as well. Moreover, still for the sake of this story, Charlus Potter and Dorea Black are born in the 1800's (Dorea in 1882 and Charlus is 1880). That means that, in this story, Dorea is actually the daughter of Phineas Nigellus, one of the previous Headmasters of Hogwarts. She was born as the 6** **th** **child and second daughter, after Arcturus Black.**

 **Also, in this story, Charlus Potter comes from the main line of Potters. The Cloak of Invisibility was his at one point. At his death it went to his son. But this son never married (well, in the original timeline he never did, at least). Therefore, it went from him to Fleamont Potter – who was Charlus Potter's son's first cousin – and then to James and then to Harry.**

 **I think that's pretty much everything. Sorry for the insanely long note but, since Harry won't remember things for a very long time (she will get flashes but she won't regain her memories until much, much later), I didn't want there to be any confusion about how she knew the things she knew in this story or about the differences from Canon.**


End file.
